The video that you see above is recent Skyward Sword gameplay footage straight from the fourth installment of Iwata Asks. Basically what this segment shows us the true Lanayru Desert and what it truly is, that last few words that I said should indicate that this will be filled with spoilers. If you think that this desert will have a decent level of difficulty then you may just be wrong, if you want to know how then take the jump and read the details that was taken from Iwata Asks.

- There’s a 3 part “transformation system” used for the desert
- The second area of the desert becomes a sea and once that happens you’ll need to use a boat
- The dungeon you head into is a stage set on a ship drifting around a desert sea
- Staff wanted to make the desert have gameplay that was of contrast
- Early on, the team researched/experimented making use of the Wii’s capabilities so players could go back/forth between the past/future in an instant, wherever and whenever they wanted
- Transformation system was a result of the experiment the team did for gameplay with contrast in the desert
- Cut through space and that becomes the past
- Strike a Timeshift Shone in the desert to turn the present into the past in a widening circle
- In the present, Link is in a desert region, with an ancient civilization lying underneath all the quicksand
- Hitting the Timeshift Stone reveals the civilization
- If you make a broken cart move after the transformation, you can’t use it in the present but when you return to the past, it works
- Characters/enemies in the desert area have robots running on electricity
- Team wondered if they would call it electricity in the Zelda world
- Tried to avoid a robot design that would look too mechanical
- Hesitation to put in anything mechanical originally
- The robots don’t seem out of place; Fujibayashi believes this is because of the designers’ skill
- Designers tried to give the robots a softer appearance
- There are puzzles you can’t see when you’re walking around in the present
- You’ll get an ancient map, so you understand how that area was long ago
- Then you overlap the present circumstances onto that
- Can’t advance into certain places due to the quicksand; ancient map shows there are ruins hidden underneath
- Map serves as a hint for making progress
- For the second desert area, Fujino thought of using Dowsing for something on the move rather than elements that stay still early on in the game
- This led to his thinking of using a big ship roving the seas and the player has to search for it
- Transformation system is vast in scope
- Takemura believed they could make a whole game out of the transformation system
- Third area may have the most transformation gameplay
- Two sets of data made for everything due to the system
- Use Wii MotionPlus in special ways to solve mechanisms in the desert
- Twist things and insert them
- Enemies are used to help solve puzzles
- Ampilus enemy appears in the desert
- There was a ton of material, so the team decided to structure the desert into three areas
- There is a building important to the story in the desert
- The desert as a whole is the scene of a big turning point within the story
- It’s also a level up in swordplay, item use, and puzzle-solving

Source: Nintendo Gazette